Dan Quinn thinks Falcons could have gotten ball to Julio Jones more

Posted by Josh Alper on September 12, 2017, 11:25 AM EDT

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Falcons offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian’s first regular season game in his new job ended with a win, but head coach Dan Quinn identified one thing with the offense that he’d like to see change when the team returns to action against the Packers this weekend.

Wide receiver Julio Jones was targeted five times over the course of the victory over the Bears, which ranked third on the team behind Mohamed Sanu and Tevin Coleman. That can be a byproduct of Matt Ryan taking what’s available rather than forcing the ball in a particular direction, but Quinn said he thought there were missed chances for their best receiver to impact the game.

“I thought we could have had some [more],” Quinn said, via the team’s website. “Maybe [even] an opportunity or two for some big ones to him. It’s something he’ll never say because that’s the type of teammate he is but yeah we thought maybe there was a few more opportunities for him in the game. He’s always a factor in what we do.”

Jones finished the game with four catches for 66 yards, which is coincidentally the same number of catches and yards that he had in the first week of the regular season last year. He followed that up with five catches for 106 yards and Quinn said Monday that “there’s not too much quiet that follows” a quiet game for Jones, so the Packers should probably be prepared for Atlanta to look Jones’ way a bit more often this weekend.

I love the whole “aside from an 88 yard busted coverage play to Hooper, the offense was a joke.” Anybody who writes that is a joke. An offense can only be judged by results. That play was on 3rd and 3 and the Falcons could have just played for the 3 yards. The OC dialed up a play based on something they saw the last few times they were in that formation. He sent multiple guys deep on 3rd and 3!!!. Great offenses have great players that allow them to get great play out of decent players. In this case, the great Ryan held onto the ball because he read the defense, stepped up in the pocket (and took a big hit) and threw the ball to the decent player Hooper, who was wide open because the SS jumped the incutting short route from the decent Gabriel and the FS chose to follow the great Julio, who was also on a deep route. It is early and Sarkisian has a lot of work to do. But this play is not to be considered an anomaly, but rather, a sign of things to come. This play happen late in the game after the Sarkisian and Ryan had a chance to digest the defensive tendencies of the Bears and dial up a great play call.